WHO WE ARE

Gary Toth

Senior Director, Transportation Initiatives

Mr. Toth is Senior Director, Transportation Initiatives with the Project for Public Spaces. He is an experienced and dynamic leader with substantial expertise in transportation planning, particularly the integration of transportation with land use planning and Context Sensitive Solutions. He possesses a wide-ranging network of relationships resulting from participation in many national transportation committees, projects, and speaking engagements around the country.

During his thirty four years of project management experience within the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), Gary become known for his collaboration and facilitation skills, and was one of the architects of the transformation of NJDOT to a stakeholder inclusive process. This led to his being a founding member of the NJDOT’s Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) program, and has helped NJDOT become a national leader in CSS. He is a sought after resource and speaker on CSS and Integrating Transportation and Land Use at many venues, including National and Regional workshops.

Professional Experience

Integrating Transportation and Land Use: Gary has been one of the national leaders in the movement to integrate transportation and land use. As Director of Project Planning and Development at NJDOT, Gary shifted the focus of major investment studies from costly, controversial and unsustainable major capacity increases to a more balanced approach. This approach, embodied in the NJFIT, Future in Tranportation program, seeks to address congestion in more sustainable and affordable ways including collaborating with local communities on network connectivity and land use planning and partnering with the developers and stakeholders to align development infrastructure in ways that can contribute to the public solution.

Gary helped form the Task Force on Transportation and Land Use, a partnership between the state DOTs of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. He has provided subject matter expertise on integrating transportation and land use to Maine DOT, New York State DOT, Connecticut DOT, Pennsylvania DOT, the Chatham County-Savannah MPO, the Surface Transportation Policy Project, the North Atlantic Transportation Planning Officials, National Community Impact Assessment Committee, Northeast Association of State Transportation Officials, and at the September 2005 Executive Seminar on Transportation and Land Use, hosted by AASHTO and the National Cooperative Highway Research Project.

Context Sensitive Solutions: Gary is one of the originators of the NJDOT Task Force on Context Sensitive Design (CSD). He was the team leader for NJDOT’s training for Context Sensitive Solutions, with over 800 trained. He has participated in workshops or peer reviews on CSD or Community Impact Assessment (CIA) in Maryland, Georgia, Connecticut, Washington D.C, Indiana, and Oregon. He has been a member of the National Community Impact Assessment Design Team since 1998, and his Division organized three day Northeastern Workshops on Community Impact Assessment in 2001 and again in 2005. As a member of the AASHTO Task Force on Context Sensitive Solutions, Gary helped redraft the National CSS principles, develop the Task Force’s strategic Action Plan, and prepared a one page flyer for DOT CEOs, entitled “How CSS Can Help You Meet Your Agency’s Mission”. He was the Keynote Speaker on CSS at a 2004 Georgia DOT Symposium on CSS.

Stakeholder Collaboration: Gary has had a multitude of experience and a wealth of training on collaborating with a wide range of stakeholders to bring a wide range of competing interests towards a common goal.

Management: Gary has over 25 years of experience in managing and directing professional staff. He was renowned within NJDOT for championing diversity, and challenging staff to highest levels of professional development. As Director, Project Planning and Development, he managed a staff of 66, with a salary budget over $5 million; and a consultant engineering budget of $25 million. His Division was responsible for a program of over 100 projects, and for delivering over $500 million dollars of new design and construction starts each year.

Education

Bachelor's of Engineering (Civil), Stevens Institute of Technology, 1973

Air Quality Post Grad work (12 credits) Stevens Institute of Technology 1975 1976

Environmental Management Institute, a 12 credit program in Public Administration and Environmental Management, University of Southern California, 1980

Publications and Presentations

“Reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled, Can We Really Pull it Off” published in Driving Climate Change: Cutting Carbon from Transportation, Elsevier Press, 2006
NJFIT: Future in Transportation, Back to our Roots, 2006 ITE Annual Conference.
Report of the AASHTO Task Force on Corridor Preservation (1990), Editor and Contributing Author

Professional Associations

Board, AASHTO/FHWA Context Sensitive Solutions web site.

AASHTO Context Sensitive Solutions Task Force.

National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, Sustainable Transportation Issues Panel (Energy, Environmental Stewardship, Land Use, and Transportation Development).

Transportation Research Board Community Impact Assessment Subcommittee.

Transportation Research Board Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

2006 AASHTO National Peer to Peer CSS Workshop Steering Committee.

2006 American Society of Civil Engineers Conference on CSS Steering Committee.

Strategic Highway Research Program Technical Coordinating Committee (Capacity).

FHWA Environmental Justice Training development team (2001).

Transportation Research Board Special Panel on Corridor Preservation (1993).

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Task Force on Corridor Preservation Secretary/Recorder (1988-1990).

Certified Public Manager in New Jersey.